


Christmas Together

by choklitcake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Opioids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 06:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choklitcake/pseuds/choklitcake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock hobbles home from the hospital on Christmas Eve.  He gets a bit bossy about where to put the decorations but John doesn't mind, as long as they're together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Together

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry I named this something so corny; I'm no good at naming things. This is my second blurb for AO3 and it's a bit short but I hope someone enjoys reading it. I wanted to write something Christmasy before it was too late. I feel like Sherlock would be one to secretly enjoy holidays, especially holidays with John.
> 
> Thanks to my Brit-picker, Heather.

John watched the dark figure schlumping his way up the staircase with a wary eye, following close behind with outstretched hands should his partner stumble or lose his balance.  The consulting detective should _not_ have been going up those stairs yet on his own, but rarely did one win arguments against an overgrown child like Sherlock Holmes.

  
Perhaps that's why the few days in hospital had been so difficult for him, John thought.  It was much harder to manipulate strangers from a hospital bed, whereas when he was dealing with John, Sherlock knew exactly which buttons to push.  It was the argument John used when Sherlock begged to be let home, but of course he had lost that as well.  
But on the other hand, it was easier to keep an eye on him whilst he was at home.  Mycroft was good at pulling strings but there was only so much the hospital staff allowed John to supervise.  Sherlock hadn't been to a regular doctor in years and there was no paperwork to prove that he was actually John's patient, and the title "best friend" meant nothing to hospital staff.  That left John with little more to do than keep his moaning partner company and plead with the staff for more painkillers.  That had been a nightmare in itself; John wasn't sure if it was truly because of Sherlock's addict past or if it was another childish swipe at a brother, but Mycroft had been very thorough at making absolutely sure that Sherlock had access to barely enough morphine and not a drop more.

  
John was sympathetic there; after all, he had had the unfortunate experience of being shot once as well, and although he was sure it felt different being shot in the side rather than the shoulder, the image of Sherlock taped up and obviously hurting brought the memory of the agonizing pain back to the forefront of his consciousness.  He was, on some level, happy to have Sherlock released into his own care so that he might ensure his partner's comfort.

  
But being released early from hospital didn't mean that Sherlock was in any condition to be taking the stairs on his own.  The dark-haired man was panting at the top of the first landing, his hand on his side, his odd head swiveled up to regard the second obstacle stretching between him and home.  John had offered an arm at the beginning of the first set of stairs but his proud prat of a friend had pushed him away.  John wasn't about to let him climb the rest of the way alone.  He walked up and grabbed the arm on Sherlock's good side, pulling it across his shoulders for support.

  
"Let me help you.  You're going to hurt yourself, you twat," he scolded gently as they took the next step together.

  
"Already hurt," came the breathy baritone beside him.

  
"Yeah, so let's keep it at one type of hurt then, hmm?"  John waited patiently as Sherlock leaned heavily on him, taking the steps like a child or an elderly person might, bringing both feet to rest on the step before tackling the next one.

  
"When did these damn stairs get so big?" Sherlock began before losing wind.

  
"Quiet.  Talk when we get inside."

  
For once Sherlock obeyed and said nothing for the duration of his agonizing trip up the stairs.  He sat on the arm of the sofa for a moment, once he was inside the flat, to catch his breath.

  
"Oh God.  I can't do anything, this is ridiculous," the younger man spat hatefully, clutching his side.

  
"You were shot, you arse.  You're not going to be back up on your feet in less than a week.  And," John reiterated, brandishing his finger at his companion, "don't think for one minute that just because you're home you're in any condition to be out gallivanting about.  Bed rest for you for a solid week at least, maybe two, depending."

  
Sherlock gave him a small eye roll but didn't argue further.  "I think I should probably just lie down here," he suggested, motioning to the sofa.

  
"Nope.  Bed."  John helped to haul the younger man up and down the hall to the bedroom.

  
"Can you sleep in your dressing gown?" John asked once he had sat Sherlock down on the side of the bed.  "Might be easier to check your bandages that way."

  
"You know I usually sleep nude," Sherlock sniffed.  "Should be quite easy to check bandages that way."  He watched as John began to make up the bed.

  
"Or you could, you know, cover up a bit."

  
"Why would I ever want to do that?"

  
"Mmm.  Basic human decency?" John tweaked as he puffed up a pillow.

  
"You know I have absolutely none of that," Sherlock said, his voice tired but his eyes twinkling.

  
John chuckled.  "Nothing but an overgrown child."  He removed Sherlock's coat and unbuttoned the untucked dress shirt he was wearing.  The body underneath was frightfully thin.  It always tugged at John's heartstrings to see how little Sherlock regarded his own basic well-being.  "Looks like we're going to be eating a lot for Christmas."

  
"You don't need to eat," Sherlock teased, poking John's small belly.

  
"Yes, well.  Being your doctor has to have some perks, right?"  He ran a hand gently along his partner's injured side.  No blood on the bandages, that was good.  "Could you maybe stand so we can get your trousers off?"

  
"Trying to seduce me?"

  
John shook his head with a pained smile.  Hit a bit too close to home, that one.

  
They got the trousers off and Sherlock managed to shimmy his way out of his pants as well.  John tried to avert his gaze and handed the man one of his silk dressing gowns.  John had experienced much nudity in the military of course, but with Sherlock it was somehow different.  He was cleaner, more innocent.  He made John feel guilty.

  
"Thank you, Doctor," Sherlock breathed as he slid underneath the duvet.

  
"Do you need more painkillers?  You're able to take a pill right about now."

  
"Would be lovely, thanks."

  
John grabbed the bottle out of the brown bag on the table and doled out the right amount.  He didn't bring it up, but he didn't trust Sherlock to handle the pills himself.  Supervision was necessary, as always with his friend.  He fed Sherlock the pill and helped him with a glass of water, a few droplets trailing down the exposed neck of the detective, who wiped them away with a heavy hand.

  
John stood and surveyed the image of his injured friend in the bed before him.

  
"Alright.  Sleep as long as you like, and don't get up for anything without calling me.  Okay, Sherlock?  I mean it.  Not even to piss.  I want to make sure you're set before you go hobbling off to do other things." John knew that as Sherlock progressively got his way, he got cockier and more impetuous.  Just because he won the battle to get let home early didn't mean he could do entirely as he pleased.  "We got you out of the hospital early but that doesn't mean you can overdo it at home.  If I come in and find you out of bed, I swear to God I'll shoot your other side."  John was only half kidding.  "Have I made myself perfectly clear?"

  
Sherlock looked amused.  "Crystal."

  
"Good," John said, clicking off the lamp.  "Sleep tight."

  
~~~~~

  
John sipped his tea, aimlessly googling as the occupier of his thoughts slept away fatigue in the bedroom down the hallway.  It suddenly occurred to him how cold and dark the flat was but he kind of liked it that way.  It was easier to brood.

  
It was Christmas Eve, and his dear friend was laid up with a nasty injury.  They were both lucky it was just a nasty injury and not a life-threatening one.  The bullet had missed Sherlock's organs but that didn't mean the wound wasn't painful.  On top of that, the detective was so thin and frail.  The last case had been a long one, keeping nourishment out of his friend's body no matter how much of a ruckus John had made.  All John seemed to do anymore was worry about that man.  He loved him so dearly...  
He had been looking forward to spending a relaxing holiday with his friend and not even that had been able to happen.  They hadn't had time to put up a tree or do any decorating.  John was no Martha Stewart but Sherlock loved fairy lights and he had always put some up in the past, to Sherlock's delight.  This year, though, the thought hadn't even crossed either of their minds.  He hoped the lack of holiday cheer wouldn't throw Sherlock into a funk.  It had surprised him how much the usually unsentimental man had loved Christmas.  
John had resorted to playing Seven Degrees of Wikipedia when his mobile lit up with a text.

  
**_I'm cold._ **

  
He had barely enough time to sigh and move his laptop to the side before his mobile pinged again.

  
**_I want out of bed._ **

  
"You can't get out of bed."  John raised his voice as he walked towards the bedroom so Sherlock was sure to hear.  "Woo, it is chilly in here," he acquiesced upon entering.  
"I told you," came the deep yet somehow small voice in the darkness.  John switched on a lamp and Sherlock squinted with the glare.  It was strikingly childlike and endearing, but John wouldn't tell him that.

  
"I'm cold, John."  Sherlock reached out for him as though a toddler might reach for a parent.

  
"It's because you're not wearing any clothes, you prat."

  
Sherlock snorted.  "Nonsense.  Did you know that a naked body retains more heat under an insulating layer such as a duvet than does a clothed one?  I've done my part," he argued, motioning toward himself.  "Now you do yours.  Go build a fire, I'm coming out for a sit."

  
John's lips tightened into a line.  "You're not coming out.  If you have a sit you can have it in here."

  
"Absolutely not.  It's Christmas.  I'm not spending it cooped up in my room."  Sherlock's face screwed up with derision, as though staying in bed to recuperate was the most absurd idea he'd ever heard.

  
"Sherlock," John put his hands on his hips and spoke very slowly.  "You agreed at the hospital that you would behave if you came home."

  
Sherlock regarded him coolly.  "...And?"

  
"And this is not behaving!"

  
"But John," Sherlock tried very hard to make his face look sad and pitiable.  "I'm bored.  And my side doesn't hurt, the analgesics are doing their job."

  
Sod it.  "Fine.  Fine.  But if you come out for a sit, you're putting some clothes on!"

  
"Whatever.  Hand me my things, I can put them on whilst you're building the fire."

  
John stomped out to build the goddamned fire.  Secretly, though, he was glad to have company.

  
~~~~~

  
Sherlock's face twisted with confusion.  "Where's the tree?"

  
"Hmm?"  John was pouring himself a whiskey in the kitchen.  Sherlock had settled himself on the sofa and had taken right away to complaining about this and that until he made the previous statement.

  
"The tree, the Christmas tree.  It's usually right there," the detective said peevishly, pointing to the corner.  He looked expectantly over to John, shadows of flames from the fireplace licking over his features.

  
"We didn't put it up this year," John said, a bit confused.  "Remember?  We were so busy with the case."

  
"Case, what case?" Sherlock shot back.  John regarded him for a moment before it hit him.  The opioids.  The hydrocodone had taken away the pain but had made Sherlock a tad loopy.

  
"The case you got shot on."

  
"Oh!  Yes that one."  That seemed to satisfy Sherlock for a quick moment, until he remembered there was no tree.  "John, I need a tree.  It's Christmas Eve, we need trees."

  
"Sorry Sherlock, we just ran out of time."

  
"There's plenty of time, it's only ten!  Mrs Hudson keeps the artificial tree in the attic, go fetch it."  

  
"What?  Right now?"  John gaped at Sherlock mid-pour.

  
"Yes.  And pour me one of those, I'm dry as a bone."

  
"Hardly."  John had to chuckle at that.

  
"John, I want a whiskey sour."

  
"With opioids?  Yeah I don't think so," John said with a smirk.

  
"Damn."  Sherlock leaned his head back on the sofa to stretch out his long neck, his eyes focused on the ceiling.  "Hopefully I'll be back in shape by New Year’s."

  
"Probably," John agreed, sipping his drink.  "That is, if you listen to your doctor."

 

"I always listen to you."

  
"If only."

  
There was a pause until Sherlock eyed the corner of the room, devoid of Christmas trees.

  
"John.  Put up the tree.  Please?"  Sherlock looked at him squarely from the sofa, his expression forlorn.

  
John really hated himself for being such a pushover.

  
"Oh, alright.  Just, quit being so whiney would you?  Like a damned child."  

  
Sherlock smiled to himself unseen as John ascended the stairs toward the attic.

  
~~~~~

  
It took John exactly fifty-eight minutes to assemble the small tree.  It would've taken him a lot less time if the directions weren't written in Finnish.  Sherlock was fluent in French and German (and had a decent handle on many more languages) but Finnish left him with a stare as blank as his doctor's.

  
"I didn't even know they had artificial trees in Finland," John had said, trying desperately to ignore how amused Sherlock was by the whole thing.  Finally he got it upright, though a bit lopsided.  Then they had both dug into the ornaments, which were ancient as well.  John set them on the sofa so Sherlock could keep busy unpacking them.  He held them out for John to retrieve one-by-one, dictating exactly where they should go and getting quite bossy about it if John had anything to say.

  
"No, John, not there... this one is larger than that one, it goes lower."  Sherlock heaved a heavy sigh so that John knew just how terrible he was at his job.  "No, that one."

  
John pointed to an old world glass bulb.  "This?"

  
"No!!  God, it's like talking to a child!"

  
"You don't say!" John shot back.  He was glad they had decided to do this though.  They were both having a genuinely great time.

  
Sherlock jabbed at the air with his finger.  "This one, over that way... yes... no you passed it.  There yes!  That one goes on the bough above... there we are.  And that one--" Sherlock's directions were cut off by a sharp intake of breath.  John looked over to see his face contorted with pain.  He discarded the ornament in his hand onto a branch and rushed over.  Sherlock had gotten overzealous with his bossing and had leaned forward farther than he should have.

  
"Hey, take it easy," John scolded gently.  "There we go, lean back."  He steadied Sherlock to lie down on the sofa, moving the empty ornament boxes out of the way.

  
Sherlock caught his breath and then said, with a little less pep, "That one you just set down, move it three boughs to the right and then turn the tree on."

  
John did as he was told before realizing he couldn't turn the tree on.  Sherlock realized at the same moment.

  
"Fairy lights, we forgot fairy lights!" he moaned, and wouldn't shut up until John trudged back up the steps to the attic to search for some.  He found one package of multi-coloured lights and was surprised upon opening it to find white lights inside instead.

  
"Would it kill anyone to keep things orderly around here?" he muttered under his breath, but in the end he didn't really mind because white lights gave off a better glow than coloured did anyhow.  It was too late to put them on the tree so Sherlock demanded they be strung from the fireplace.  John plugged them in and looked to Sherlock.  He was smiling with satisfaction, the glow reflecting in his eyes.

  
It was nearing midnight by then.  John poured another whiskey and went to sit at Sherlock's feet on the sofa, but Sherlock gingerly sat up to give him room on the opposite end.  Once John had situated himself, Sherlock laid back down with his head in John's lap.

  
For a long while there was nothing but the soft hiss and pop of the fireplace as John absentmindedly ran his fingers through the ridiculous mop of hair in his lap.  When John had first met the detective, his dark coif had struck him as strangely fitting for an unusual man such as Sherlock, striking curls to swath his head in drama and mystery.  After getting to know the man over the course of eighteen months, however, John now saw the hairdo for what it was: an overgrown mop on a man who couldn't be arsed to do more than ruffle it each morning regardless of the expensive clobber he wore.  That it always seemed to fall perfectly into place anyhow only seemed to irk John; he wasn't a vain man but it took a bit of muscling to keep John's cowlicks in place every day, and the kicker was that Sherlock wasn't even trying to attract anyone in particular.

  
"This hair," he murmured softly, carding buttery-soft strands through his fingers.

  
"What about it?"

  
"Hmm."  John didn't really have a reply, and Sherlock didn't press for one.  They fell into a companionable silence and John began to wonder if his companion had fallen asleep until he spoke again.

  
"Tree looks nice."

  
"It does."

  
"Thank you for putting it up."  Sherlock's voice was sincere and tired.

  
John smiled to himself.  The tree looked good.  Sherlock's hair felt good.  The whiskey left a good effect.  Everything was good.  "You're welcome.  You know," he said, genuinely interested, "I'm a bit surprised you like Christmas so much.  I mean, I'm glad you do, but I wouldn't expect someone like you to find as much joy in it as you seem to."  
John couldn't see it, but Sherlock smiled a bit ruefully.  "Hmm.  Well, to be honest, it takes me back a bit.  To when I was a boy."

  
John was thankful that Sherlock couldn't see his eyebrows shimmy up towards his hairline.  Sherlock talking about his childhood.  Now they were getting somewhere.    
"That's a normal feeling to have this time of year I suppose.  Did you have a lot of happy Christmases as a child?"

  
"Suppose," Sherlock said with a soft sigh, adjusting slightly on John's lap.  "Christmas is such a wondrous time when you're a child."  He paused, then huffed a small humourless chuckle.  "Listen to me, waxing sentimental.  Bless this morphine."

  
"It's hydrocodone.  And, to be fair, the holidays make plenty of people wax sentimental," John pointed out.  "Makes me think of my time as a boy as well.  Waiting for Santa, opening presents, family... happier times.  Things were simple then."  Before Harry came out, before Mum and Dad began arguing, before the alcohol, before depression and fear and war... but before Sherlock.

  
John found himself rubbing Sherlock's scalp.

  
"It was the only time of year things were consistently cheerful," Sherlock said softly.  "Fairy lights, decorations, the sort.  Could make anybody feel good."  His voice was deep and breathy, adding weight to the stillness of the room.  When John didn't say anything, he continued.  "We always had a grand tree in the hall.  Huge glorious thing.  When you're a small boy it only seems grander.  My parents never decorated it, they let the help do it.  I used to order them about, if you can imagine."

  
John snorted a little.  "Yes, believe it or not, I can imagine it all too well," he said with much mirth.  "No wonder you were telling me where to put things."

  
Sherlock unleashed his deep chuckle.  It was interesting, John thought, imagining the tall, macabre, cerebral brute of a man with an impossibly deep voice as a small pale boy in Sunday clothes.  He rubbed behind his ears and Sherlock leaned into the touch.

  
"Everything has to be just so or it's no good.  If a paper chain or glass ball was off I'd sneak back in after dark and rearrange them."

  
John looked around the flat, taking in Sherlock's obsessive level of disorganized orderliness.  Of course the tree had to be just so.  But in a Holmes residence?  "Didn't anyone ever notice?  Glass Santa is a half inch to the right, or an icicle facing the other way?  Things like that?"

  
"Nah," Sherlock said with a dismissive flip of his hand.  "Parents didn't have time to notice anything.  I'm sure Mycroft did, but he never said anything."

  
"Hmm."

  
"But the parties," Sherlock said, voice picking up a bit, "the parties were always to be looked forward to.  So many things to observe, so many people to watch and notice and deduce.  It was perfect, no one ever paid me any thought.  Short introductions and then I'd be off to pick them apart from afar while they hit the sauce."

  
"Alone?" John asked.

  
"Of course," Sherlock answered, as though it were obvious.  "Adults never pay attention to small boys at an adult Christmas party.  It was perfect."

  
_And I'll bet terribly lonely_ , John thought.  "So you liked the parties because it gave you a deductive outlet?"

  
"I suppose that's a fair assessment.  I like being lost in a crowd.  Observing."

  
"You like being admired by a crowd," John corrected.

  
Sherlock's chest jumped in amusement, a short exhale of breath.  "I like being admired by people who matter."

  
The unspoken implications of that statement smacked John square in the chest and rendered him unable to comment.  His hand dove on its own accord back into the hair on his lap.  A few quiet minutes ticked by.

  
John was once told that Sherlock had wanted to be a pirate as a boy.  The thought had made him smile both on the inside and out.  With that imagination, of course Sherlock had wanted to be a pirate.  John certainly did not have a hard time believing that.  John could picture the stubborn little thing now, all dark curls and bright blue eyes and gawky limbs and slight lisp, shoving off for lands unknown in a striped shirt and paper hat.  Perhaps he had been playing pirate at a Christmas party, scribbling deductions down in a captain's log.  The image made him smile and get a bit romantic.

  
"I wish I had known you as a child," he said before he realized it.  Sherlock slowly turned his head to peer up at him.

  
"I'm sure I'd have followed you around even then," John continued.  He could picture it clearly: this headstrong, brilliant child, fearless and as yet untainted by his troubled teen years, would have bounded into John's childhood and colored it with his cheeky splendour.  John was a smart, sensible child, but a bit chubby and fretful even back then, and he had always needed someone to follow around and answer to, it seemed.  Sherlock would've filled that niche quite nicely.  The small blond boy would have loved to go off on fantastic adventures and listen to that little lisp prattle on for hours as though he knew what he was talking about.  Of course in reality, Sherlock was nearly five years younger than John, which was a lot when you're a child, but disregarding that...

  
"You certainly would not have liked me as a child," Sherlock said firmly.  "I was quite a nuisance."

  
_You're still quite a nuisance_ , John thought but didn't say.  "But I bet you had many grand adventures, with that imagination of yours--"

  
"Romanticising is dangerous, John."  Sherlock's gaze was pointed, but not angry.

  
John wasn't fazed.  "Come off it.  You're laying here giving me a lyrical account of your childhood Christmases and telling me not to romanticise?"  John paused but when Sherlock didn't reply, he continued.  _I'd have fallen in love with you even then_ , John heard the whiskey say in his mind.  "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind we would've got on beautifully."  He considered a minute before throwing caution to the wind.  "I wish I'd have met you earlier, you know.  I want to know you every step of the way."

  
The corners of Sherlock's mouth quirked up softly before he turned his head away again so John could resume petting his hair.  

  
"You would be quite disappointed, I think.  But," he conceded, "perhaps I'd have been much different if I had met you as a child."

  
John wished so badly he had been there to care for Sherlock during his darkest years, but it was out of his control so he didn't like to dwell on it.

  
"I loved Christmas as a boy," Sherlock continued, his mind obviously preoccupied with memories.  It was unusual for him to talk this much about his past and John chalked it up to the analgesics, but decided to keep quiet and enjoy the few scraps of Sherlock's life story that were thrown his way.  "Even as I got older and so many things fell away, so many parts of my life sloughed off, it was something to somehow look forward to."

  
Sherlock closed his eyes, focusing on John's warm calloused hand on his head.  His side was beginning to ache again and he felt like everything was happening in slow motion, but if getting shot meant he got all of John's attention and his hands in his hair to boot... well by God Sherlock was alright with it.  He knew he was babbling like an idiot but he didn't care.  Perhaps tomorrow he'd care, but not now.

  
"I'm glad I have you to share it with me, John.  I like being alone, but... I don't like being left alone."  He reached to grab at John's knee.  "I wish I were able to play the violin right now," he added as an afterthought.  "I know how much you enjoy it."

  
"I love it when you play.  I love watching you play too.  It's like you're outside of yourself, it's brilliant."  John knew he shouldn't have been drinking.  Damn it, damn him, why did he have to drink?  But he was so happy right now... Sherlock was near and on the mend, and it was Christmas, and here he was with his head in John's lap.  John hadn't cared much about Christmas for a long time, but suddenly it had meaning again.  "Christmas meant nothing to me for years, Sherlock.  I'm glad you've made it mean something to me again.  I'm glad we can share it together.  I'd have it no other way."  Shut up, John.  _Shut up_.

  
Sherlock's brain was adrift in a sea of John's words.  John wanted him near... well of course he did.  But to have it said plainly like that was something in and of itself.  Sherlock wanted no one near him but John.  He had to ask this next thing.  He had to or he was going to drown in himself without ever knowing.

  
"John..."  His voice was very soft.  Tentative.  Unsure and meek.  Stripped.  Completely novel, coming from Sherlock Holmes.  "If I had been a woman..."

  
John's breath caught in his throat.  It was the hydrocodone.  It had to be.  Sherlock had no discernible filter to begin with and everything was magnified right now.  He tried desperately to grasp at reason and rationality.  "Sherlock..."

  
"If I had been a woman, would you stay with me?"

  
Of all the ridiculous things to ask, John thought.  Sherlock Holmes, the coldly logical detective, asking such an absurd question after drawing an equally absurd conclusion.

  
Time somehow managed to skid to a halt and drag on concurrently.

  
"...What?  I'm not leaving you," John's mind scrambled for purchase.  

  
"But you will someday."

  
"Sherlock... don't do this."

  
"Someday you'll leave and move on with your life and I'll be alone again."  It wasn't accusatory; it was purely a resigned and painful statement of facts as one lonely man saw them.  "You'll leave because I'm not a woman."  Sherlock moved to sit up, pulling John's hand from his head and leaning back to regard him sadly.  Social constructs and mores-- how bothersome they were, constantly getting in his way, always with the Work and now with his personal relationships.  "Gender means nothing to me.  I could do my job in either skin.  If it meant keeping you here, I wish I had been born female.  It matters little to me."

  
This was madness.  

  
"If you were female, you wouldn't be you, Sherlock."

  
"I would.  I'd just be in a form more pleasing to you.  John," Sherlock prodded, reaching for John's hand and putting it back on top of his head.  John let him.  Sherlock slumped a bit, head rolling along the back of the sofa.  Damn John for being so perfectly ordinary.  He turned to look his doctor in the eyes, as if he might will his thoughts into his head.  
John slid his hand down to cup Sherlock's jaw, holding his medicated head steady.  He returned the gaze of the man who meant more to him than anything else possibly could and saw only a brilliant child with a fear of being abandoned.  

  
Sod it, John thought.  _Sod it._

  
He couldn't possibly know it at the time, but he would look back on this evening as a turning point.  The next words out of his mouth were lubricated but sincere and mercifully said before he had a chance to feel self-conscious about them.

  
"I love you."  They were out now.  He couldn't shovel them back in.  They broke free of John's mouth and bridged the gap to Sherlock's soul.

  
The phonetic sounds of the words ran together and bled into Sherlock's brain, saturating it like an X-ray ion chamber.  No, John wouldn’t understand that analogy; like coffee saturating a napkin.

  
"I love you."  It wasn’t something that was said to people in real life.  It was murmured by the heroine in movies, by drunken imbeciles in late night pub crawls, by mothers who were looking into their dying children's faces.  It was certainly never said to Sherlock Holmes.

  
"John, I..."  Sherlock couldn't.  He didn't dare.

  
John was smiling.  Oh, and Sherlock's mind was carbon paper and that smile, that smile was etched into it...

  
Sherlock's face was screwed up with fright.  John gripped his shoulders tightly.

  
"I love you," he said again.  "I love you.  I love your brilliance, I love your ignorance, I love your ridiculous quirks and your addictions, and I want you to go on being your intolerable, stupid, insufferable self until the end of my days."  John leaned in until they were touching foreheads.  His breath ghosted over Sherlock's face, carrying with it a fetching hint of whiskey.  "Until the end of me.  Which, by the way, you will be.

  
"John, I..." Sherlock could taste John's breath, he was soaking him up like blotting paper, he could smell his love, he could taste it in his soul and it was so damned, hatefully terrifying and new.

  
"John..." And now, he was rendered speechless, like some ingénue.  Hate.

  
"Shhh, it's alright," John whispered, putting a hand to Sherlock's face and stroking his cheek with his thumb.  Sherlock momentarily wondered if that patch of skin would glow a brighter color.  No, that was ridiculous.  But John had just told him he loved him, and that was ridiculous too.  He was desperate to respond but all he could do was flex his jaw and blink.

  
"It's alright," John said again.  "I know."

  
John knew.  Of course.  John always knew.

  
They sat that way for a small eternity, foreheads touching, hands caressing, palms rubbing against each others' necks and jawlines.  John leaned in until their noses were touching and finally, finally broke the tension with a firm, slow kiss on Sherlock's mouth.  Sherlock, he of no physical experience, was content to let John do as he pleased, now high on more than simple painkillers.  As John pulled away, he reached up to the back of his neck to hold him near his lips.

  
"I love you too," someone had taken up residence in the back of Sherlock's throat and was speaking for him.  Thank God for hydrocodone, because Sherlock was quite aware that without it, this might not have happened.  He certainly wasn't adept at sharing his feelings, but he saw now that when all the variables met certain criteria, it could have its benefits.

  
The clock struck twelve.

  
Sherlock's lips curled into a positively bewitching smile.  "Happy Christmas, John."

  
John leaned his head against Sherlock's once again.  "Happy Christmas, you git.  I'm afraid I don't have any gifts for you."  John did feel genuinely bad about that.  He enjoyed the aspect of giving to people he cared about.  "You know, what with what's been going on and all."

  
"I haven't much need for anything anymore."

  
John smiled.

  
He wasn't gay.  He didn't lust after Sherlock's abs or anything like that.  He liked women and was attracted to women and always would be.  But Sherlock transcended gender somehow; John was in love with the most compelling, spellbinding person he'd ever known, and it was just happenstance that he was male.  It had been a long time coming but he felt okay about it.  Sherlock desperately didn't want him to leave and he desperately didn't want to leave him.

  
He pulled Sherlock's head to rest against his shoulder and reached to stroke his hair.

  
"Here's to many more happy Christmases together."

  
"As it should be."

  
It wasn't their first Christmas together, but it was one of their most memorable ones, their bodies and breaths and thoughts entwined as they watched the fire burn down.


End file.
